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by Inthemorninglight



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Book 5: Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, Gen, Hermione isn't white in this story, Platonic Relationships, Time Travel, implied abusive dursleys, nothing that's not cannon but just made explicit
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-09-20
Updated: 2019-11-02
Packaged: 2020-10-24 23:03:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 16,290
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20714018
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Inthemorninglight/pseuds/Inthemorninglight
Summary: Teddy wants answers about the war and when his godfather won't provide them, Hogwarts Castle takes matters into its own hands, sending him back to the summer of 1995. As Teddy lives through the events of Order of the Phoenix, he's not only confronted with the parents he never met, but also his recently-traumatized, 15-year-old godfather. His purpose in the past may not be what he had imagined.





	1. A Wish

**Author's Note:**

> Hello! It's been quite awhile since I posted HP fic, but I've been quietly chipping away at this idea for years now and I thought I might as well fling it out into the void. As of now, I'm still working on it, but I make no promises for timely updates and only hope it stimulates your imagination. I would absolutely love to know what you think as you read, though, so please comment if you have thoughts.

The whistle blew. Steam was rolling over the platform in thick clouds. Teddy was grateful for its cover. If he timed it right, he might even be able to slip onto the train without anybody seeing. He knew he’d get a reproachful letter from his grandmother, maybe even a howler, but right now he didn’t care. He was fifteen, practically of-age. If he didn’t want to say goodbye to anybody, he shouldn’t have to. 

Cautiously, Teddy poked his head out from behind the pillar he’d been leaning against – not hiding behind. He could hear Bill and Fleur saying their farewells to Victoire perhaps ten feet away. The train was a thirty yard dash, but with the milling crowd and the steam, he could make it. His trunk was already loaded. He glanced around again, then darted out and began weaving his way through the crowd at a near run. The Weasleys were quickly lost behind him, and the glowing scarlet of the train loomed ahead, clearer and clearer as he drew close. He would get hell for this, but he could ignore letters, and by Christmas, they would have to let it go. Especially if he said he couldn’t find them. 

He was five feet from the door, about to take a flying leap, when a hand closed around his elbow and dragged him to a jerky halt. Teddy saw the scars and knew who it was without having to look. His insides squirmed, but the familiar anger simmering low in his belly took care of that before he’d even turned to face his captor. 

“Almost didn’t find you,” Harry said. He didn’t sound angry, but there was something in his voice that said he knew what Teddy had been up to and was not impressed. 

“All the fog,” Teddy said a little stiffly. Their fight from the night before had cooled and congealed in the space between them. “Besides, we aren’t really doing the big send-off this year, are we? You’re the only one that’s here.” He tried not to sound sullen, but it was hard. 

Harry sighed impatiently. “Teddy, you know we’d all be here if the kids weren’t sick.” 

“Yeah, I know,” Teddy muttered. He stared fixedly at his fingers. There was an awkward silence. 

“I’m not trying to hide things from you,” Harry said at last, running an agitated hand through his hair. “Teddy, you just can’t understand –”

“What can’t I understand?” Teddy demanded, sudden heat flaring in his voice. “I lived through a war, too you know. You can’t stand there and – and try and tell me I don’t know – that I didn’t feel the effects just as much as you did.” 

“It’s different,” Harry snapped stonily. “I’m not saying you’ve got nothing to complain about, but, Teddy, living through the aftermath and living through the war – having  _ memories _ of war are very, very different.”

“So give me some of your memories so I can understand! You don’t even have to relive them, just drop them in the Pensive and let me see.”

“No,” Harry told him flatly. “You should be glad you don’t have memories like that.”

“Then how else am I ever going to understand?”

“I’m done with this argument,” and his voice echoed with finality. “The train’ll be leaving any minute. Are you ready to go?”

“You love saying that, don’t you? ‘You’re too young, you don’t understand.’ If I  _ did  _ understand, you’d have nothing to hold over my head.”

Harry’s face remained passive. “You’d better get on. Have a good term.”

He tried to pat Teddy’s shoulder, but Teddy pulled away. With a final, defiant scowl, he turned his back on his godfather and headed for the open train door.

<<<

They were well out of the station by the time Teddy found an empty compartment. The minute he threw himself into a seat, however, all the bitter resentments seemed to drain out of him, leaving him feeling like a complete arse. He shouldn’t have said any of that. But it was true, he thought almost at once, feeling a fresh surge of anger. But he shouldn’t have said it now, today, right before he took off for four months. Well, why not? the petulant part of him demanded, and he had to admit that the petulant part of him had a point. Maybe he’d been an arse, and he was sorry about that, but it didn’t change the fact that he had a right to understand the thing that had left him orphaned, the thing that had shaped everything in his life intrinsically. He hated being shut out of conversations, hated lying awake at night wondering what sort of life his parents had had at the end. He had been born on the cusp of a generation and so was falling through the cracks, and above all he hated being treated as if he had been spared when he  _ hadn’t  _ been. That was the thing, they protected him as if they could keep him innocent and carefree, keep the horrors of the past from touching him, but they had already been infused in his very skin, and nobody was doing anything about  _ that _ . 

Talking about it was hard, he got that, but they didn’t have to talk. They could just show him with memories. Not all of it, of course, but enough so that he didn’t feel so completely estranged from this thing that had made him who he was. He had a right to understand, he thought as he stared at the flashing landscapes outside the train’s window.

And that thought burned unquenchably in his chest.

>>>

First night back at Hogwarts, and Teddy couldn’t sleep. He tossed and turned fitfully, but to no avail. The ire that had clung to him for days now, perhaps even all summer, was growing hotter and more unshakable, only aggravated by his self-imposed isolation. Teddy had deliberately avoided his friends on the train ride, and when Victoire had sought him out, had retreated coolly into a book until his surliness drove her away. He had sat with Rob at the feast, but spoke hardly a word, too consumed with his questions and indignation and not in the mood for festivity. He was not an ordinary fifteen-year-old, he kept thinking, and so did not feel much like acting the part. 

When the clock read 2:00 A.M. and he had yet to sleep a wink, Teddy kicked his way free of the tangled sheets and rolled to the floor. Maybe if he walked off some of this restless energy he would be able to drift off some time before the sun rose. He didn’t think to bring anything with him, not even socks, and realized too late that this was probably a bad plan. The flagstone was freezing on his bare feet and every shadow looked like the hunched figure of old Mr. Filch the caretaker without the Marauders’ Map to give him warning, but he ignored the Fat Lady’s admonishments and demands to know where he thought he was going at this hour. 

Far from relieving him of restlessness, though, Teddy’s sense of indignant ire surged with every battle scar he passed. Anywhere the old weathered stone turned to new, clean slabs, where a statue was stamped with the insignia of Piere Stalsworth, the artist who had crafted new pieces to fill the empty pedestals after the Battle of Hogwarts, where a plaque or a painting commemorated a fallen hero, Teddy’s blood pressure jumped.  _ I’m older than those things  _ he kept thinking again and again. He had been born before these halls had looked like this, and that should count for something. 

Teddy did not know how long he’d been walking before he found himself in the deserted corridor on the other side of the seventh floor. He’d been up and down so many staircases that the only reason he could locate himself was the tapestry of Barnibus the Barmy teaching trolls ballet. It was one of the pieces that had somehow survived the Battle, albeit a bit singed. Moonlight rippled in through a tall window a few feet down the corridor, and Teddy felt his skin prickle even though it wasn’t quite a full moon yet. That, he supposed, was probably not helping matters. Suddenly exhausted, although no more drowsy, he slid down the wall to huddle on the cold floor and stare dully at the failing troll ballet before him. 

_ I need _ … he thought, kneading his forehead with his palms,  _ I just need someone to show me so they’ll all stop treating me like I don’t belong to the war, too.  _

He sat there on the floor for a few minutes longer, letting the heaviness of exhaustion roll through his limbs. When his feet were starting to feel numb, though, he decided it was about time to go back to bed before his luck ran out and he ended up with detention. With a soft groan, Teddy clambered to his feet. He staggered a little, not realizing how tired he had become. Out of the corner of his eye, he thought the moonlight looked oddly bright, and that was the last thing he remembered before the flagstones came rushing up to meet him.


	2. It's Complicated

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There's a lot of Dumbledore and logistical talk in this one, it should get more exciting soon though!

Teddy surfaced very gradually, bobbing hazily on the cusp of consciousness for a long time. Sounds reached him as if through water, the echo of footsteps, the murmur of voices, the occasional opening and shutting of doors or drawers. He didn’t pay them much attention. He felt very strange, not quite solid, as if he’d been scattered and each of his atoms had been meticulously threaded back together, but not quite as they had been before. His head ached and his stomach fluttered nauseatingly, and even though he was quite warm, he felt a bit shivery. 

At first he thought he was very small again and cuddled up on his grandmother’s sofa and kept listening for the sound of her humming as she cleaned. But it didn’t come so he must be at Harry and Ginny’s and they were trying to keep the kids quiet so he could sleep. He must have caught whatever the kids had come down with, he thought muzzily, but he couldn’t be at Harry’s because they’d had a fight and then he’d gotten on the train. 

A door opened and this time it didn’t feel so far off. There were voices. Groggily, Teddy rolled his head to the side and cracked his eyes open. The memories had mostly assembled themselves in the right order by now and he lifted a hand to gingerly touch the bump on the back of his head where it had smacked into the flagstone. They must have found him in the corridor and taken him to the hospital wing. 

He squinted through the haze of white light and sure enough could make out the glint of the metal bedsteads and the shine of bleached white sheets marching away from him in two severe rows. Teddy raised his head, feebly pushing himself up on an elbow. He was lying in a pool of blazing sunlight and according to the clock beside him, it was mid-afternoon. 

“Ah, good. You’re awake.” Madam Ponfrey came bustling up the aisle between the beds carrying a tray of potions. 

Teddy wondered with dismay what exactly was wrong with him to warrant such medication. He squinted up at her as she poured some blue liquid into a spoon. It was definitely Madam Pomfrey, but there was something different about her. He wondered if she’d done something different with her hair, but it was hidden in a white cap as it always was. 

“Are you taller?” he mumbled, furrowing his brows. 

“There, now, swallow this,” she said soothingly, sliding the spoon between his unsuspecting lips. Teddy gagged and sputtered. “Best get used to it. There’s more where that came from. That’s what you get for breaching so many defensive enchantments. Lord only knows what you were thinking or how you did it, but….” She trailed off, busying herself with another goblet, something pink this time. 

“What are you talking about?” Teddy gasped, groping for the water glass on his bedside table. Had he accidentally tripped some security spell? Stumbled over some ancient curse? “What happened?” 

“That, dear boy,” said someone down the ward, making Teddy jump and whip around, “is something we would all like to know.”

A tall figure was striding up the ward toward his bed, long purple robes swishing. The voice was old and unfamiliar, and Teddy struggled to make out a face between the sunlight and shadow. Then the man reached the foot of his bed and laid a hand gently on Teddy’s knee, and Teddy, looking up at the long sliver beard and half-moon spectacles of the greatest wizard since Merlin himself, felt as if he were being blasted into a million atoms all over again. 

>>>

“But you’re… you’re…” he choked, scrambling backwards and nearly falling out of the narrow bed. The place on his leg where Albus Dumbledore had put his hand felt as if it were burning or freezing. 

“Calm yourself, dear boy. There is no need to panic. I am Professor Albus Dumbledore, the headmaster of this castle, yes.”

“But you’re dead!” Teddy finally managed to splutter out, and the implications of that fact rushed at him like a speeding train. Was he dead, too, then? Had he stumbled upon some nasty residual curse and gotten himself killed? Or had he just hit his head too hard on the flagstone and now he was hallucinating? He hoped it was the last one. 

Then Teddy saw the look that flashed between Madam Pomfrey and this manifestation of Albus Dumbledore before he gave Teddy a small smile and perched himself on the edge of the bed. 

“I assure you I am quite as alive as I have ever been,” he said calmly. “But, if I may ask, why is it you believe I should be otherwise?”

Oh so intelligently, Teddy stared at him with his mouth hanging open. He could not quite sort all this out, and it didn’t help that he’d recently smashed his skull against some very hard flagstone. 

“Shall I call for Minerva or Severus?” Madam Pomfrey asked uncertainly, and Teddy looked around at her, studying her more closely now, for she seemed to be able to see the long-dead hero of the last century too, and as far as he knew, she hadn’t died either. She  _ was  _ taller, he thought, not stooped as he always remembered her being. And the stray strand of hair that had escaped her cap was not wispy and white, but dark. 

_ Severus _ , Teddy repeated in his head.  _ “I’m not a monkey, I’m Albus Severus Potter like the headmasters!” _ Al had gasped that out only last week, dangling upside-down over Teddy’s shoulder and laughing madly. Severus… Snape. Who was also long-dead. 

“Are you alright?” Dumbledore was asking him concernedly. Teddy couldn’t breathe properly and he had broken out in a cold sweat. He had asked for someone to show him what it had been like…. If he wasn’t dead and he wasn’t going mad – and he still wasn’t sure about either of those possibilities – then to be talking to Albus Dumbledore, he must be… he must be….

“What’s the date?” he asked, his voice wavering all over the place. 

“It is the first of August,” Dumbledore told him. “You’ve been unconscious for at least twelve hours.” 

“And the year?” But he already knew what had happened. It had been September last time he’d opened his eyes. 

“Nineteen hundred and ninety-five.” 

An overwhelming feeling of vertigo swept Teddy back against the headboard. His ears were ringing. Timeturners could take you back twenty-four hours, no more. Hermione had told him that. It wasn’t  _ possible,  _ even with magic, to go back years and years. It had never happened. Everything could get messed up so quickly. The risks were extraordinary. This was mad, utterly insane. He was losing his mind, he couldn’t breathe – 

A goblet was being pressed to his lips and Teddy drank without wondering what it was. Someone was rubbing the back of his neck soothingly. It reminded him of what his gran would do when he was ill and for a moment he was convinced that when he opened his eyes, he would be awaking from a very bizarre fever dream. But he was still in the hospital wing and a younger Madam Pomfrey and a very alive Albus Dumbledore were watching him worriedly. 

His breathing had slowed, and it felt a bit like he was floating. He knew he should be very worried right now, but suddenly he couldn’t work himself up.  _ Calming drought, _ Teddy thought vaguely, leaning back against his pillow. 

“Better?” Dumbledore asked. Teddy nodded. “Very good.” He was looking at Teddy with intense blue eyes, and Teddy suddenly remembered Harry describing the sensation as being x-rayed. It was extremely apt. “You are not from here, are you, Mr. …?”

“L – Teddy,” Teddy filled in, managing to scrape together enough wits not to use his last name on the off chance it had catastrophic consequences. “That is, my first name is Teddy.” 

“And your last name?” Dumbledore asked. 

Teddy looked away from that disconcerting gaze. “I don’t think I should tell you.” 

Madam Pomfrey looked alarmed, and Teddy knew she was thinking he was some Death Eater spawn or something, but Dumbledore, although looking curious, merely nodded. “Very well, your name is your own to do as you wish with. Poppy? Would you mind asking Professor McGonagall to wait for me in my office?”

If Madam Pomfrey resented the dismissal, she made no sign of it, turning swiftly and disappearing up the corridor at once. Teddy marveled a little at the unquestioning loyalty. McGonagall was well-liked and respected by her staff, but he couldn’t imagine anyone taking orders quite like that from her. 

When she’d gone, Dumbledore scooted his chair closer and looked squarely into Teddy’s face. “Forgive me if my assumptions are incorrect, but your age and accent suggest that you ought to be in the midst of your schooling in England, yet I do not recognize you. It is a point of pride for me to be able to call all my students by name. What is more, your reaction suggests most interestingly that you were not expecting it to be 1995. You think I ought to be dead, and I know quite certainly that there is no way you could have simply appeared inside these grounds. Can you explain these things to me, Teddy?”

Slowly, Teddy shook his head. “I think it would be better if I didn’t, sir.” 

Dumbledore looked at him for a long moment before he spoke. “Very well, if you believe that is best. But can you at least confirm or deny my suspicion? You came not from far  _ away _ , but from far  _ forward _ , didn’t you?” 

Because lying to Albus Dumbledore seemed pointless, Teddy nodded, and the old man’s eyes blazed excitedly. “ _ Extraordinarily _ intriguing, dear boy,” he breathed. “Can you tell me  _ how _ ?”

Teddy let out his breath and shook his head, wincing as it throbbed.

“Lie back, lie back,” Dumbledore told him, helping him settle himself more comfortably against the headboard. “Perhaps you could tell me about what happened before you woke up here. I promise my utmost discretion, Teddy. I might even be able to help you. I don’t believe it will hurt anything so long as you are cautious with what you reveal,” he added when Teddy still hesitated. 

“Right,” Teddy sighed, thinking back to the moments before he’d arrived. “I was here, in the castle – that is, in my time. It was the first day back for us. I couldn’t sleep, so I went for a walk and sat down in a corridor for a while. When I got up to go back to bed before I got into trouble, I got really dizzy, you know, like when you stand up too fast, and there was a light, and the next thing I knew I was hitting the ground and then I was here.” He looked up, as mystified as ever. “Have you ever heard of anything like that happening?”

Dumbledore considered him. “No, I cannot say that I have.” 

Teddy’s heart sank. “Right.” 

“But,” Dumbledore added quickly, leaning forward. “If you were where we found you, I may have a theory. Do you feel up to taking a short walk with me, Teddy?” 

<<<

“This is the place,” Teddy conceded, looking at the tapestry of the would-be troll ballet and feeling disconcerted to find it completely unsinged. 

“Is there any particular reason you stopped here?” Dumbledore inquired. 

“No…” Teddy said slowly, thinking. “I just ended up there.”

“Why was it that you couldn’t sleep, if you don’t mind me asking,” he asked, eyeing Teddy shrewdly. 

Teddy shifted uncomfortably. “Just had a lot on my mind.”

“I have long-since learned that this castle is so full of magic, magic all the way form before its founding, that it very nearly has a mind of its own,” Dumbledore told him, running his long fingers thoughtfully along the stone wall. He turned back to Teddy. “Whatever was on your mind last night may hold a great deal of baring for the matter at hand. Whether my help is worth your private thoughts, though, is up to you.” 

Teddy chewed his lip. “Well, if you must know, I had a fight… with my godfather before I got on the train.” He stuffed his hands in his pockets and looked at his shoes. “I wanted him to tell me…” he sighed and looked up at the ceiling, stringing his words slowly and deliberately, “what it was like during… during the mid-90’s. But he wouldn’t, so I was angry.” 

“And why are you so interested in this era?” Dumbledore prodded. 

Teddy shifted. “It’s complicated.”

“Complicated to tell anyone, or complicated to tell me in particular?”

Teddy glanced sheepishly at him. “You in particular.” 

Dumbledore nodded his understanding. “Very well. You will have to rely on your own judgment when it comes to discretion, and I will respect that. For now, we ought to get you back to the hospital wing and under Madam Pomfrey’s care; you’re looking rather peaky. Thank you for telling me what you have. I shall look into the matter while you rest.”

Teddy nodded. His head was starting to throb again and in a matter of minutes, he would be swaying on his feet. Dumbledore took his arm to steady him as they started back. Teddy hesitated, though, looking over his shoulder at the corridor.  _ I need to go home _ , he thought on a whim, but nothing happened. Perhaps, he realized suddenly, because the wish didn’t fill his whole body as it had before. 

He was in 1995, eighteen years in the past. He was having a private conversation with  _ Albus Dumbledore _ himself. How many people would kill for that where he was from? And somewhere in the country, maybe even at the other end of an owl Dumbledore just sent, his living, breathing parents were leading their lives. How could he get all the way here and leave without once speaking to them? 


	3. Teddy Tonks

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Finally getting to the good stuff!

The next time Teddy awoke, dusk had fallen. He had half-expected to wake up in his own dormitory, surrounded by his year mates, but that expectation was fading fast. He was really here, eighteen years in the past. Thanks to Hogwarts Castle? He didn’t know, didn’t understand. But he was here. Teddy rolled over, blinking in the dim lamplight that filled the infirmary, and Madam Pomfrey came bustling over with a tray of food. He hadn’t realized how hungry he was until he saw it. 

Just as he was wolfing down the last scraps, the door at the other end of the ward opened, and Dumbledore strode in. Teddy dropped his spoon with a clatter, looking up eagerly.

“Good evening, Teddy,” he said serenely, taking a seat beside Teddy’s bed. “How are you feeling?”

“Loads better,” Teddy told him. “Have you figured anything out, sir?”

Dumbledore steepled his long fingers. “I have formed theories which I believe are well-founded, but I cannot say anything for certain.” He looked over his fingers at Teddy here, and Teddy nodded for him to continue. “I believe our earlier speculations are correct. The magic that has been seeping into the stones of this school for a millennium at least can accomplish strange and spectacular feats when the circumstances are right. Time travel – especially over many years – is incredible indeed, but unless there are other factors you are not telling me or do not know of, this seems the best explanation. I have witnessed small miracles of this castle myself a time or two, and it would not surprise me in the least that it were capable of much, much more.”

“Can I ask you something?” said Teddy suddenly.

“I don’t see why not,” Dumbledore said, not looking the slightest bit perturbed by the interruption. 

“How come you don’t think I’m completely mad? I mean, time travel? On this magnitude, it’s not even possible. And I said you should be dead. How do you know I’m not some rogue agent in on an assassination plot?”

Dumbledore chuckled softly. “When you have lived as long as I have, nothing seems mad to you anymore. You don’t look like a rogue agent, but just in case, there was Veritas Serum in that calming drought we gave you earlier. I can trust everything you’ve told me as the truth – or at least your perception of the truth.”

“Right,” Teddy muttered, squirming a little. It restored his faith in Dumbledore to know he hadn’t simply taken the word of a raving stranger, but it still left him feeling a little violated to not even know he’d been fed truth serum. 

“Shall I continue?” Dumbledore asked.

“Yeah, go ahead.” 

“As I was about to say, this makes getting you back to your proper time much trickier. It will depend on the same metamorphic magic that brought you here. There is a myth about that particular corridor and need. It has a funny habit of giving a person whatever they need within the parameters of magical law. I believe your desire to understand this time in history brought you here, and I believe that when you have achieved whatever you need here, you shall be able to go back. This, I’m afraid, may not be a quick task.

“I have no idea what it is you need here, but I imagine it will not be easily found in an empty castle. Thus, arrangements must be made for you. Have you any insight in to the matter? Any place you suppose you ought to go?” 

The first thing that came to his head was his parents. What he needed was to speak with them, stay with them even. But he didn’t know how that could possibly happen. Hey Remus, Dora, some teenager just dropped out of the sky from the future and requested to live with you for a while. That ought to go over great. 

“I have contacted some associates of mine whom I believe will be able to provide you lodging and protection until the new term starts,” Dumbledore said when Teddy didn’t give him an answer. “We are in the midst of rather dangerous times, and your circumstances put you at high risk should anyone discover you haven’t got a history here – or that you have got one, but it just isn’t as far along as it should be. These people will be able to hide you and give you a reliable alias. Then, in September, you will be able to return here with the rest of the students, unless you believe you ought to be elsewhere.”

Teddy nodded. An entire month hidden away in some stranger’s house and then he would be back here going to school with… well, with his fifteen-year-old godfather. He might never lay eyes on the two people he needed most to see. 

“Sir?” he asked, clearing his throat and looking up suddenly. “Could you tell me who’ll be taking me?” 

“There are a couple of Aurors who are free for the task,” Dumbledore told him. “They’re meant to meet with me regarding certain security issues on behalf of the Ministry anyway, so it will not appear suspicious should anyone observe their coming or going. Their names are Kingsly Shacklebolt and Nymphadora Tonks. Nymphadora, I believe, will provide a key element for your cover story.” 

Teddy was sure his heart had stopped. He’d entertained a brief second’s hope that his parents would be among the associates Dumbledore was talking about but had not truly expected it. Not trusting himself to speak, he nodded, staring down at the bed sheets. 

“Very good.” Dumbledore stood up with a swish of his robes. “They should be here to collect you around six o’clock tomorrow evening. I’ll explain our plan more thoroughly at that time. Until then, Teddy, I shall leave you in Madam Pomfrey’s charge. Good night, and I shall see you tomorrow.”

Teddy watched him stride up the ward. At the door, he turned around. “Oh, and Teddy? Rest would do you well.” 

On that somewhat cryptic note, the ward door closed with a muffled thump. 

<<<

Of course Teddy couldn’t sleep after a conversation like that. His entire body hummed with alternating currents of excitement and fear. In less than twenty-four hours he would be face-to-face with his mother for the first time in his memory. She, of course, would have no idea who he was. She would be… he did the math in his head… twenty-two years old. It seemed both suitably old and terribly young an age to him. 

He wondered how he would be able to look into her face without hearing the clock of her life ticking away precious second after precious second. Three years, she had. In three years, he would be born and she would be dead. His throat tightened painfully. How was he going to look at her without dissolving into tears? 

Maybe this was a bad idea. Maybe he wasn’t ready for this just yet. Maybe this was the cruelest joke anybody had ever played on him. He would be able to see and speak to his living, breathing mother, but he would not be able to fling his arms around her neck and bury his face in her shoulder. He would not be able to hear her say she loved him or was proud of him or that she was sorry she hadn’t been there the million other times he’d needed her. He would not be able to ask her the most important question of all:  _ how could you leave me? _

Instead, he would have to act like a perfect stranger. 

But he would hear her voice. He might learn what made her laugh or see how good at her job she was. He could ask her other things, even things he already knew the answer to, and get her account of them. 

All night, Teddy alternated between these emotions. The dormitory was already beginning to lighten by the time he fell into an exhausted stupor. 

>>>

Madam Pomfrey took one look at the dark rings under Teddy’s eyes when he woke late the next morning and insisted he stay in bed until at least mid-afternoon. She brought him oatmeal and another round of potions, checked his pulse and temperature, and shined a lot of bright lights in his eyes and told him to look this way and that and describe every sensation. 

His head hurt a lot less than it had the day before, which they both took as a good sign. But lying in the empty ward staring up at the ceiling with nothing to distract him from the looming prospect of venturing out into 1995 with his mother was steadily driving him mad. At last, Madam Pomfrey took pity on him and allowed him to get up, and he burst free of the ward as fast as he could reach the doors. 

Teddy spent the three hours between him and six o’clock wandering aimlessly through the halls as he had the night he’d been brought back here. It was strange to see the castle so different. It all looked ancient and a bit battered, but nothing was scarred. He examined the statues and paintings that were unfamiliar to him, the ones that would be destroyed in three years and no one from his time would ever have the chance to gaze at again. 

The grounds were not so different, though. There was no marble tomb beside the lake, but everything else was familiar. He walked around the lake, losing himself in the dazzling, sapphire blue water and imagining that Rob or Victoire would trot up to join him soon, or that he might run into Professor Longbottom working in the vegetable patches. He skulked in the shadows of the trees behind Hagrid’s hut, hoping to catch a glimpse of him stumping around the pumpkin patch or emerging from the woods, but not even a wisp of smoke rose from his chimney. 

He felt very odd, set adrift, perhaps. The familiar faces that had peopled his world were all gone. His gran, Harry, Ginny, none of them were just an owl away here. How long would it be before he would see them again?

Maybe not so long. Maybe after he met his mother, he would be able to go home. Maybe that was all the school was waiting for. 

The sun was hovering low in the sky when six long, low tolls of the bell rolled across the grounds to him. Teddy waited a moment before rolling to his knees and standing beneath the beach tree he and Rob always sat under. He started up the path toward the castle.

<<<

“Pepper imps,” Teddy told the stone gargoyle, nervously rocking backwards on his heels. Madam Pomfrey had given him the password before he’d left the infirmary along with the stern instructions not to overexert himself. The statue leapt aside and Teddy stepped onto the moving spiral staircase, clutching the banister tightly in slick hands. 

The time Harry and Ginny had taken him on the London Eye when he was six rose to the surface of his thoughts. The heart-hammering, nauseous, fluttery feeling he’d had as their car slowly rose ever higher, no magic supporting them at all, had been exactly like this. 

When he reached the top of the staircase, he was faced with a partially ajar door. Through it, he could see Dumbledore leaning over his desk and the back of a bald head that could only be Kingsley’s. Beside Kingsley, he could see an elbow in blue robes. His throat squeezed painfully shut. 

He had hoped to hover outside the office until he’d collected himself enough to knock, but the moment Dumbledore glanced up, he was spotted. 

“Ah, here is our young guest, now. Come in, Teddy.” 

Teddy took a deep breath and stepped into the office. 

“Watcher,” said a cheerful voice and his eyes snapped to the young woman seated beside the future Minister of Magic. Her hair was curly and strawberry blond, nothing like the bubblegum-pink he’d been expecting. But her heart-shaped face, the quirk of her eyebrows, the slant of her grin were all so painfully familiar it stopped him short. 

She stepped forward, offering a hand. “I don’t know what Professor Dumbledore’s told you my name is, but you can call me Tonks.” She tried to wink at him as he shook her hand, but Teddy kept his eyes fixed on the floor. 

“Kingsley Shacklebolt,” Kingsley said in his familiar, soothing voice, offering his own hand. “Albus has just been telling us a bit about you.” 

“Why don’t you have a seat, Teddy?” Dumbledore instructed, waving his wand so that a third chair appeared between the other two. Teddy perched himself on the edge of it, gripping the armrests hard enough to turn his knuckles white. 

“Are you alright?” Dumbledore inquired kindly. Teddy nodded jerkily. “Very well. I was just telling Tonks and Kingsley about the predicament we’re in. Tonks and her family have agreed to claim that you are her younger brother.”

“It works well, really,” his mother piped up. “I’m a metamorphmagus just like you, Professor Dumbledore told me, and my dad’s name is Ted, so you’ll fit right in.” 

She was smiling at him again, but Teddy couldn’t look at her. He just nodded again and stared at the edge of the desk.

“You will go by the name Teddy Tonks,” Dumbledore went on. “You were very ill as a child and for this reason, your parents decided to homeschool you. However, with the rising threat – and no doubt your desire to meet other children – they have finally agreed to let you attend Hogwarts for your fifth year. A business opportunity has taken them abroad for several months, however, and your sister suggested you come to stay with her in a safe house where you will be able to get to know a few of your classmates before the term begins. Does this make sense?”

He nodded. Teddy Tonks. Just like his grandfather. Maybe he would even get to meet the man who’d given him his name. 

“Kingsley will be able to bolster our story should the Ministry find it suspicious – which they are always wont to do, it seems of late. He is in charge of the manhunt for Sirius Black, who happens to be Tonks’s mother’s cousin. He would know the family tree better than anybody and will attest that you have just been an overlooked part of it.”

“How much do you know about Sirius Black, Teddy?” Kingsley asked, exchanging a look with Tonks over his head.

Teddy cleared his throat, scrambling for an answer to this unexpected question. The name carried enormous value to him, but it had always been fixed in the past and important only in relevance to his father or his godfather or his grandmother. “I know he was accused of a bunch of murders he didn’t commit and broke out of Azkaban.”

“I have informed him of the situation,” Dumbledore explained swiftly at Kingsley’s surprise. “It is his house that you’ll be staying at,” he added, which finally brought Teddy’s head up. Grimmauld Place? He was going to be living in that dusty, rotting reservoir of creepy dark artifacts? “I trust, knowing that Sirius is innocent, this won’t be a problem?”

“N-no,” Teddy stammered. 

“I’m sorry I hadn’t discussed this with you earlier,” Dumbledore said apologetically. “You were already asleep when I made the arrangements.” 

“It’s fine,” Teddy shrugged. Grimmauld Place in 1995. He knew that Harry and Hermione and the Weasleys had all lived there for a month or two at some point. They must be the classmates he would be getting to know. He pushed that level of strangeness away for later. 

“Very good,” Dumbledore said, clapping his hands together. “I have withdrawn some money from the school fund to pay for your next term as well as the school materials you will need. I believe it would be a good idea for you to stop by Diagon Alley on your way. It will also give you time to familiarize yourself with our story and for you and Tonks to get comfortable with each other, for you two will have to act believably like family,” Dumbledore said, nodding to Teddy and Tonks. The words made Teddy’s stomach twist. 

“I’m afraid Scrimgeour is expecting me in fifteen minutes,” said Kingsley, looking at his watch. 

“That’s alright. We can handle the Alley on our own, can’t we, Teddy?” Tonks said brightly.

“I’m sure you can,” said Dumbledor. “However, it would ease my mind and quicken the task if you had backup. Mondugus is on duty tonight, I believe, and Arthur’s at the Ministry. Perhaps Bill or Alistair could accompany you.” 

“I’ll send a message to headquarters recruiting,” Tonks told him. 

“Excellent.” Dumbledore stood and clapped his hands together. “Well then, unless there is anything any of you would like to discuss with me, I suppose I ought to let you be on your way.” 

Tonks and Kingsley stood too, but Teddy remained seated. 

“Actually, Professor, could I have a word?” he asked quietly.

“Certainly,” Dumbledore said, and sat back down. 

Teddy waited for Tonks and Kingsley to close the door behind themselves before speaking. “What exactly did you tell them about me?”

“I told them only that you needed a family to hide in.”

“Didn’t they ask why?”

“I’m sure they wondered, but it was not important. I vouched for your character and they agreed to help us.”

Teddy absorbed this new evidence of unquestioned loyalty. 

“Right. And is it just… just the Tonkses and Kingsley who’ll know I’m not really Teddy Tonks?” he asked.

“I have gone to some effort so that as few people are aware of the deception as possible. Sirius Black is also aware of it; he was in contact with his cousin Andromeda and knew she did not have a second child in the year 1980, as did Remus Lupin, a friend of Sirius’s who also was in contact with Andromeda through Sirius at the time. They have agreed to attest to the story as well. A couple of Ted’s friends have also consented to having their memories modified so that you are in their recollections, but Ted and Andromeda have always been a relatively private couple, which makes it easy to insert you into their story. Does that reassure you somewhat?”

“Yes,” Teddy nodded. He wondered if Dumbledore was already noticing how easy it was to ‘insert’ him into the Tonks family. 

“Very good. Oh, and Teddy, I’d like to ask one more thing of you. I understand that it may not be possible, but should you accomplish whatever it is you need to, I would like you to tell me so that if you turn up missing, I will know you aren’t in any danger. Can we agree to that?” 

“Yes, sir.” Teddy stood, turning a wary eye on the door. 

“Tonks is a marvelous witch,” Dumbledore told him, following his gaze. “You have nothing to be anxious about in her care.” 

A lump rose suddenly and unexpectedly in Teddy’s throat, and he tried to swallow it back. “Right, thank you, Professor, for… for everything.” 

“You are very welcome, Teddy. I trust you will be cautious and wise in the coming month. Contact me if there is anything you need.” 

Teddy nodded again. He looked at Dumbledore for a moment, standing there in a cloud of sunlight streaming through the office window. Albus Dumbledore in the flesh. He nodded one more time, then turned and left the office. 

>>>

Kingsley had already left by the time Teddy jumped off the bottom of the spiral staircase, but Tonks – it was easier to think of her as Tonks; mum sent a painful pang through him, and anyway, she was not technically his mother yet – Tonks was leaning against the wall shooting puffs of pink smoke at the ceiling. 

“Wotcher,” she said cheerfully, straightening up when she saw him. His lips twitched upward. “I’ve just sent a message to the Order. Well, a couple people in the Order, anyway, not the whole bleeding lot of them. I didn’t send one to Mad-Eye. Didn’t reckon you’d want to deal with him on your first day. He can be a bit much. Have you heard of him? Mad-Eye Moody? Not going to Hogwarts and all, you wouldn’ta had him as a professor.”

“Yeah,” Teddy said, caught off guard by the question. The words seemed to pour out of her unendingly, lively and bright. 

“Oh, good. I never know how much people get out of the papers. Kids especially. I never read the papers when I was in school, but I know a girl your age who reads them cover-to-cover and likes to debate politics with anyone who’ll listen. You’ll be meeting her, actually. Nice girl, even if she is a bit… zealous.” 

They were winding their way through passages now, and he was only half-listening to her words. Teddy kept staring at the half-familiar walls. He would never be able to walk this route without hearing his mother’s bubbly babble ever again. He pinched his forearm hard. This was actually happening and he couldn’t afford to get distracted. He snapped his attention back to the conversation. 

“… says he’ll meet us at the gates,” Tonks was saying, evidently about whoever was escorting them. They had reached the marble staircase now. “So, Teddy, what’s your story?” 

“My – my story?” Teddy found himself scrambling again. He wanted to tell her everything, to pour out his life on her and see what she thought of it. That, of course, would probably prevent his existence. 

“You don’t have to tell me,” she said, looking sideways at his apprehensive expression as they passed through the great, oak front doors. “Or you could tell me parts of it. Where’d you grow up?”

“In the West Country,” he said cautiously. 

“Me too!” she beamed. “Nasty weather, eh? I remember when I was a kid, my mum’d get so furious with me ‘cause I wouldn’t come in when it was raining. Course you’d never get outside if you had to stay in every time it drizzled.”

“Yeah, my gran’s the same way,” Teddy murmured. “I spent a lot of time in the north, too, though, and the weather’s not so bad up there. My godparents live outside this tiny Muggle village, out in the country.”

“Do you fly at all?” she asked eagerly, and Teddy had to suppress a grin.

“Yeah, loads. It’s really excellent out there. My godfather made his own makeshift sort of stadium and we can get pretty high since there’s no one else close by. It’s excellent.”

“Wish I’d had something like that as a kid. We lived right in town,” Tonks said enviously. “Do you spend a lot of time with your godparents?” 

Teddy shrugged. “Yeah, quite a bit, really. They sort of half-raised me.” He found he was avoiding looking at her, the elation that had been filling him suddenly shifting to something dense and leaden. 

“What about your parents?” When he did not answer, she peered at him inquiringly. “Ah, Merlin, I’m sorry. Ignore me, I shouldn’t have asked.”

“No, it’s… it’s okay.” He cleared his throat, which had once again tightened painfully. “They, um, they died. When I was a baby. I – I never knew them.”

She was quiet for a moment. Teddy examined his fingers, breathing rather hard and feeling the fading evening was far too hot. Then she put an arm around his shoulders and squeezed him in a gentle half-hug. “I’m really sorry.” 

A thousand responses welled up in Teddy’s chest at that. He had waited his entire life to hear those words. It was a nicety, he knew, she wasn’t really apologizing for the way he’d grown up. He was supposed to say that it was alright, it wasn’t her fault, in return. But all his words were jammed up in his throat again and it took all his willpower not to sob right there. 

“Teddy?” she asked softly, a bit uncertainly. “Are you going to be alright?” 

Her fingers were rubbing soothing circles into his shoulder, and he squeezed his eyes shut against the wetness gathering there and nodded. 

“I see our chaperone’s waiting for us,” Tonks said. “I’ll go let him in on the plan and give you a minute, alright?” She ruffled his hair lightly, a comforting gesture, before jogging ahead of him on the path. 

Teddy sniffled sharply and swiped his sleeve across his eyes. He took a deep breath.  _ You can’t act like this the whole time _ , he told himself sternly.  _ You can’t fall apart in a blubbering mess every time she touches you. _ He took a few more deep breaths, steeling himself. He was getting an afternoon shopping with his mum. Never in a million years had he dreamed it was possible. He was not going to ruin it by choking up every two seconds. 

He was only a few steps from the gates, now, and could hear Tonks talking to someone. He and his newly-made resolution were not prepared for what he saw when he looked up. 


	4. Introductions

“So, where shall we start?” Remus Lupin asked, scanning the shops before them. Remus Lupin stood right next to him in the jostling crowd of Diagon Alley. Remus Lupin pulled him out of the way of a brigade of excitable teenagers who had clearly just gotten off their shifts and were beelining for The Leaky Cauldron (which was manned by a strange old, bald man rather than the sweet, pretty Hannah Longbottom). Remus Lupin, the man Teddy had pinned so much on, glorified in all his mildness, was right here in the flesh. 

“You’ve got a wand already, haven’t you?” Tonks asked.

“Um, yeah? Yes,” Teddy said more confidently as the words finally translated in his head. He pulled out his wand, which he had thankfully remembered to take with him when he’d gotten out of bed to wander the castle. Never  _ go anywhere without your wand _ , Harry’s voice echoed emphatically in his head, a lesson drilled into him before he’d even had a wand. Would Remus Lupin have drilled that lesson into him, or would he have picked another?

“Excellent. We’ll be able to get most of this second-hand, but that’ll leave some money left over for a few new things. What would you rather have new, Teddy? I’d imagine robes, but new equipment for potions might be more useful. Molly Weasley – you’ll meet her tonight – she’s excellent at making second-hand clothes seem nearly new.” 

“I don’t mind second-hand things,” said Teddy agreeably, not about to reject the first piece of advice his father ever gave him. 

“Not one of those vane kids, then. I like it,” Tonks winked at him. “I can take him for robes if you wanna grab the potions stuff,” she said to Remus. 

“If you’d rather. I know the second-hand shop pretty well, though,” he added, eyeing her ripped up jeans and old rock T-shirt somewhat dubiously. “And the apothecary not so much, I’m afraid. It might be faster if you went for the potions supplies.”

“Whatever floats your boat,” Tonks chirped. “You alright with it, Teddy?” 

“Sure,” Teddy nodded. His parents were negotiating shopping duties for his school supplies. This was the most picturesque moment of his life.

“Great! I’ll come find you when I’m done then. Mind your manners with Mr. Lupin and all that, right, kid?” she said with a hand on his shoulder and a joking sort of wink, trying the sister hat on for size. She ruffled his hair before setting off toward the apothecary. 

“Shall we?” Remus asked, and when Teddy looked up at him, he saw that his father was hiding a small smile. 

Teddy had never actually been in the second-hand shop in Diagon Alley. His grandmother was frugal, but she detested buying things strangers had used before her. Remus, however, seemed to be on reasonably friendly terms with the balding, middle-aged curator. 

“How have sales been, lately, Edric?” he asked amiably as the man led them through the narrow aisles of worn clothes and scorched potions bottles and piles of odd junk. 

“Not bad, not bad,” Edric puffed. “One of the northern Weasley folk just had twins, so I’ve been seeing quite a lot of them lately.” 

“Oh, well, I’ll have to congratulate Arthur when I see him. Must be one of his nephews,” Remus said absently, stopping to examine a rack of jumpers. 

“How’s that briefcase holding up, Remus?” Edric called, lost from view in the next row. “I got in some good self-tying boot laces if it isn’t staying shut. Be happy to give ‘em to you for the business.” 

“Oh, it’s holding up well enough,” Remus gestured for Teddy to come and look at a jumper. “Don’t need it so much these days, anyway. Not since the teaching position fell through.” 

“That’s too bad, that is,” Edric called with genuine sympathy. “Always figured you were a professor type.” 

“Yes, well, easy come, easy go,” Remus shrugged. “What d’you think, Teddy?” He was holding up an argyle-pattern against Teddy’s chest. The only argyle Teddy had ever worn, his Gran had forced him into for a Christmas pageant when he was seven. 

“Sure, it’s excellent,” he grinned. 

Remus smiled faintly in return, perhaps confused by his enthusiasm for jumpers. He pulled out a few more argyle patterns and heaped them into Teddy’s arms. “Your uniform’ll have to be black of course, but you’ll want some good trousers and shirts for the summer. It gets drafty in the house, and in the castle, too. Can’t go wrong with jumpers.” 

They moved steadily through the aisles, loading a cart down with everything from socks to earmuffs, Edric popping up now and again to chat. Remus asked Teddy’s opinion on everything, but Teddy let him do the picking-out, plodding along faithfully behind him as he tossed collared t-shirts and corduroy slacks and cloaks that looked very out of fashion to Teddy (although everything from the nineties looked out of fashion to him) into the cart. 

“Are you excited to go to school?” Remus asked as they browsed the school robes section. 

Teddy glanced at him in the mirror above the clothing rack. “I s’pose. Yes, I am.” 

His father looked old. Teddy had always known he’d had graying hair and lines on his face despite being in his mid-thirties, but compared to his very young, vibrant mother, he seemed much older. He looked older than Harry did, Teddy thought, then berated himself for making the comparison, but he couldn’t keep it out of his head. Remus was, what, thirty-five in this time? And Harry had just turned thirty-three. He looked like a kid next to Remus, though. He didn’t give Teddy advice like the castle would be drafty. 

“Are you alright, Teddy?” Remus was holding up a set of robes to check for length. Teddy shook himself and nodded.

“I was asking what subjects you like,” Remus told him, measuring the sleeves critically.

“Oh – I dunno. Defense Against the Dark Arts I s’pose. My – I know a couple Aurors.” He broke off uncomfortably. Bringing up his godfather to Remus was much more uncomfortable than it had been with Tonks. 

“I imagine, with your sister joining the ranks and all,” Remus glanced up from his measurements with an amused smile. 

“Right,” Teddy mumbled, taking heed of the gentle reminder about his supposed identity.

“These look about right, but I imagine you’ll grow over the year. If we go a size up, they’ll last longer. But Defense is an exciting subject. It was my favorite, too. I even taught it for a bit.” Remus exchanged the robes for another set and Teddy obliged as he measured the new ones. 

“Really?” Teddy asked, feigning surprise. His mouth felt rather dry. 

“Certainly. I’ve got a few books on the different subtopics if you’re interested. Well – a former student of mine is borrowing some of them, but she flies through books like water. She’ll be happy to share, I’m sure. Do you like reading?”

“Oh, well enough,” Teddy mumbled. 

“Fair enough. I know most kids would rather be messing about on a broom or something, but I thought I’d offer if you were interested. Not a lot of space for flying where we’re staying.” 

“No – I do like reading,” Teddy hastened to assure him, feeling irrationally panicky at the thought of disappointing him. “I – read quite a bit, really.” Well, that was stretching the truth somewhat. He didn’t  _ mind  _ reading, really. 

Remus smiled again amusedly. “It’s alright. If you want to borrow them, you’re welcome, but you don’t have to. What  _ do _ you like to do?” 

Teddy shrugged, feeling flustered. 

“Quidditch?” Remus suggested. 

“Yeah, but only pick-up games,” he told him, skimming the rack for his size. “I’m too clumsy to make the actual team.” 

Remus chuckled. “I wasn’t particularly coordinated myself, but my mate was mad about flying, so I spent disproportionate amounts of time watching, listening to, and talking about Quidditch, not to mention making a fool of myself on a broom. It eventually got to be fun. What else do you get up to?”

They’d moved on to textbooks now, sorting through stacks of pealing books laid out on tables. Teddy shrugged again, glancing at the list Remus had laid between them. 

“Oh, come on, you must fill your time with something,” Remus prodded. 

“I babysit a lot,” Teddy offered, unable to think of anything else. “I have – a lot of little cousins.” 

“That’s nice,” Remus said. “You’ll get on well with the Weasleys, then. They’ve got seven kids. The youngest one’s only a year younger than you, of course, and two of the older ones aren’t around, but they can still be a rowdy bunch.” 

Teddy turned away to hide his grin. 

Remus seemed to have run out of questions. He was much more content than Tonks was with companionable silence, Teddy thought. His inquiries were all polite and friendly, but more to put Teddy at ease, perhaps, than genuine curiosity.

Textbooks were the last thing on the list Remus thought they could get second-hand, so once they had found the lot, they headed for the checkout.

Edric had just finished ringing them up when the door to the shop burst open with a merry tinkle of bells. Teddy looked over reflexively. It was a woman and two teenage girls laden with shopping bags. The woman pushed her way into the shop and headed for a shoe display, but the girls both stopped in the doorway, staring at Remus. 

Teddy didn’t know why, but he didn’t like the looks they were giving him and his father. He stared back and raised an irritated eyebrow at them. They were shopping at a second-hand shop, too, after all. Who were they to be judgmental? The younger of the two girls darted after her mother, catching her by the elbow and whispering something into her ear. The woman straightened up with a jerk and looked over at Remus. Then, taking the two girls by the shoulders, she hurried out of the store. 

Teddy was bewildered. 

“Sorry about that, Ed,” Remus sighed regretfully, and Teddy glanced up at him curiously. Neither man had turned to see the charade happening behind them, but both were grim-faced. 

“Not your fault, Remus. I don’t need bigoted business, anyway,” Edric grunted, dumping the bulging sacks into a chipped school trunk they’d also purchased. “Shall I send it home for you?” 

“I can manage, thanks, Ed,” Remus said quickly and with a wave of his wand, the trunk vanished. 

“What was that about?” Teddy asked as they emerged into the orange evening light, his curiosity getting the better of him. 

“Just an old prejudice, that’s all,” Remus told him absently. “Your sister ought to have everything else by now. I wonder where she’s got to….” 

But Teddy wasn’t satisfied with that answer. He glanced back over his shoulder at the shop, and something thunked into place in his head, making him feel incredibly stupid. 

“That was because you’re a werewolf?” he asked before he’d thought better of the question. 

Remus stopped dead in the middle of the street and turned sharply to face him. “How did you know that?” he asked tightly. 

Taken aback, Teddy stammered out the first explanation he could think of. “D-Dumbledore told me. When he was telling me, you know, about everybody.”

He watched nervously as Remus took a deep breath and finally cracked a small, grim smile. “I suppose you would have found out sooner rather than later, anyway.” He started walking again, and Teddy rather thought he was being careful to keep an extra inch or two of space between them. “Yes, that is what I am, and yes, what happened back there was because of it. I had the girls as a student a year or so ago; they must have recognized me.”

“And they just left because you were shopping there? It’s not even a full moon, is it?” Teddy asked indignantly. 

Remus flashed another grim smile. “No, indeed, but people don’t need it to be to dislike associating with beings they feel are unclean.” 

“That’s ballocks,” Teddy growled. 

“I agree,” Remus said mildly. 

“All set then?” a cheerful voice chirped from behind them and a moment later, Tonks fell into step on Teddy’s other side, brown apothecary bags swinging from her wrists. 

“I believe so.” Remus pulled out the list to check it one more time.

“Excellent,” Tonks said happily. “I got you plenty of refills, a good slice ‘em and dice ‘em kit, and a really nice little cauldron. It might even make potions your favorite subject. Everything go alright for you two?” 

“Yes, quite well,” Remus said quickly, now checking his watch. “I believe we finished just in time. Molly ought to have dinner ready any minute, now. I trust he already knows where we’re going?” 

Tonks nodded. “All set for the journey.” 

“Good. Unless you object, I’ll go on ahead and let them know you’ll be coming through the floo, yes?” 

“Ay-ay, captain,” Tonks nodded, and without another word, Remus vanished into the crowd. 

“So, what’d you think of him?” she asked, looping her arm through Teddy’s so they wouldn’t be separated as they pushed their slower way up the bustling street.

“Er…” 

“I know, he can be a bit stuffy, but he’s quite the card, really, once you get past all that. Ask him what he was getting up to at your age some time, and if he won’t tell you, ask Snuffles.” 

“Who?”

“The dog,” Tonks told him with a wink. “C’mon, we ought to get going before we end up bursting out of the fireplace in the middle of dinner. Molly probably won’t be very pleased if we get ash in her stew.” 

And she began dragging him faster up the street. 

The Leaky Cauldron was beginning to fill up with an after-work crowd, but the queue out was very short. They only had to wait for a groggy old man dressed in plaid to be coaxed kindly into the fireplace by the bald old bar tender before it was their turn. 

“Remember, keep your voice down as much as you can and still say it clearly,” Tonks reminded him as she poured a handful of powder into his palm. “I’ll be right behind you.” 

Teddy nodded, and, trying to ignore the wave of nervousness at the prospect of meeting people he was well acquainted with some twenty years in the future, dropped the powder over the flames. 

“Number twelve Grimmauld Place,” he whispered as plainly as he could, and emerald green flames roared up around him and sent him spinning. 

Teddy didn’t even have time to wonder what on earth he was going to do if he ended up in the wrong place when he was spilling out of a large, sooty brick grate into a strangely familiar and unfamiliar gloomy, low-ceilinged room. He had been in Grimmauld place’s kitchen at least half a dozen times before. It was usually dusty, barren, and hung with cobwebs, but brightly lit and relatively safe compared to the rest of the house. This kitchen was tidy but rather dim and filled with dark wood cabinets and ancient-looking bureaus. It was also about ten times more crowded than Teddy had ever seen it before. 

A few people near the fireplace had looked around upon his entrance, but most hadn’t even noticed. More, however, took note when the flames roared emerald once more and Tonks toppled over his legs with a squawk, grabbed at the mantelpiece to steady herself, and ended up taking down the poker stand instead. 

“Excellent entrance, I give it eight point seven out of ten,” a gruffly amused voice called from somewhere down the table as a few people attempted to stifle laughter. Tonks took a bow as she got to her feet. 

“Goodness, are you alright, dears?” someone else asked anxiously and Teddy looked up to see Molly Weasley bustling toward them. Her hair was still the vivid red of her children and grandchildren, her face much less lined, and there was a quickness in her step he had never seen before, but he couldn’t mistake the kindness in her expression for anyone else. The sight of her familiar face comforted him more than he’d expected it to; it was almost like having his own grandmother here with him.

A hand appeared in front of Teddy’s face and he took it, halfway to his feet before he realized it was Remus helping him up. 

“Are you alright?” he asked, brushing the soot off Teddy’s shoulders. 

Teddy nodded, doing his best not to look past Remus at the others gathered in the room watching them. 

“Thanks, Molly. Hope we haven’t interrupted too much,” Tonks was saying beside him.

“Of course not, we were just about to start. And this must be him, then? Your brother?” 

“Sure is.” Teddy turned as Tonks swept an arm around his shoulders. He managed a half-smile for Molly, who was looking him over curiously. “This is little Teddy, alright. Ted, this is Molly Weasley. You ought to be really, really nice to her since she’ll be the one feeding you for the next four weeks.” 

“It’s nice to meet you, dear,” she said, taking one of Teddy’s hands and patting it warmly before turning back to a large kettle on the stove. The gesture was kind enough, but it left Teddy feeling very strange. He had never not received a bone-crushing hug from Molly Weasley. 

“Well, I s’pose you ought to meet the rest of the room,” Tonks was saying, prodding him forward toward the table, and ready or not, she brought him down the line. 

He shook hands with Kingsley Shacklebolt, who was looking very strange, dressed in regular auror’s robes with a gold earing through one ear, then a very young, dragon-skin-clad Bill Weasley whom he barely recognized without all his scars, and finally Emaline Vance, Sturgis Podmore, and a small, rather smelly man called Mondungus whom he thankfully couldn’t remember ever meeting before. Then he was face-to-face with possibly the most disturbing-looking person he had ever encountered in his life. Involuntarily, Teddy took a step back. The man – he thought it was a man, anyway – parted his gnarled lips in what was probably a grin, but his face was so scarred and mottled it was hard to tell. Only one beady black eye was visible, the other hidden beneath a badly askew bowler cap. The hand he offered Teddy was more like a claw. 

“Honestly, Mad-Eye, I don’t know how you ever thought you would be a teacher; you traumatize kids just by looking at them,” Tonks sighed, putting a reassuring hand on Teddy’s back. “Don’t worry, he’s not the creature from the dark lagoon or anything. This is Mad-Eye Moody.” 

“I don’t remember you ever mentioning a little brother,” Mad-Eye Moody said, shaking Teddy’s hand with a grip that nearly squeezed his fingers out of their sockets. 

“Did I mention he’s our resident paranoid ex-auror?” Tonks added, and shuffled Teddy along with a roll of her eyes in Mad-Eye’s direction. “And this,” she went on as they came to the end of the table, “is Mum’s cousin Sirius.” 

Teddy couldn’t help but stare at the gaunt, yellow-toothed man proffering a bony hand for him to shake. He would not have known this was Sirius Black, so changed was he from the handsome, carefree boy Teddy had seen in what few pictures Harry had. This man had dark, sunken eyes and long, somewhat wild hair that brushed his shoulders. His grin seemed bitter and his handshake painfully hard. 

“Last time I saw you was in a picture Andy sent right after you were born. I can see why they named you after Ted,” Sirius said, eyeing him with an intensity he tried to keep hidden, as though trying to read him like a book. “You’ve got his look about you. ‘Cept the hair. That’s your sister. You as much of a pain in the arse as she is?”

Tonks smacked him on the arm, but Teddy and Sirius’s sizing each other up was interrupted by a commotion spilling down into the kitchen from the hall. 

“Give it back you pricks!” 

Teddy turned just in time to see a pack of red-headed teenage boys tumble from a staircase at the far end of the room. 

They were fighting and grappling with each other, tossing something back and forth and moving so much it took Teddy a moment to realize it was just three of them and not half a dozen, and that two of them were identical. 

“Boys!” Mrs. Weasley snapped. 

There was a yell and a fourth redheaded child leapt like a panther from the stairs, landing on one of her brother’s backs. Teddy shook his head, thinking for a minute that Lily somehow followed him all the way back to 1995. But Ginny Weasley was a teenager, not a four-year-old, and although she attacked her brothers just as viciously as Lily, there was certainly a distinction. 

“Arseholes!” one of the boys yelled as the box they were throwing went sailing over his head. 

“Ronald!” 

As Bill Weasley went over to try to break up the fight, Teddy noticed another person in the shadows of the stairwell, a dark-skinned girl with a mane of bushy hair. She stood on the second step, clutching the ugliest cat Teddy had ever seen to her chest and watching the scuffle with a mild air of disapproval. 

Rather than breaking up the fight, Bill had somehow gotten dragged into it and Ginny was climbing up his back. 

There was a crack and quite suddenly all five Weasleys separated, their hands frozen up above their heads. 

“For heaven’s sake,” Molly said irritably, marching over to them as the entire room watched, entertained. “Did I give birth to a pack of wolves? Bill, you are twenty-five years old.” 

“I was trying, Mum.” 

Molly merely shook her head. “And you two, you’re of age! You expect us to treat you like adults while you go round playing keep-away from your brother?” 

“Arseholes,” Ron muttered again. Teddy blinked and shook his head. Ron was his age. That was bizarre. 

“Language, Ron! And you’re hardly better. You’re fifteen and still fighting over what? Jelly beans?” 

“They’re mine and these gits took them!” 

“I don’t care, it’s entirely too immature to act this way.” 

Teddy had seen Molly Weasley lecture, many times. He’d even been on the receiving end of some of those lectures. Another oddly comforting, familiar thing. 

“And Ginny, I expected better behavior at least from you.” 

“I’m sorry, Mummy,” Ginny said in a believably contrite tone which seemed to soften her mother just a little. Teddy would’ve believed it too if he hadn’t witnessed Ginny playing innocent for her mother a hundred times before, and he didn’t miss the maniacal look she flashed the boys as soon as Molly’s back was turned.

Molly let her spell fall with a shake of her head. 

“Before you all set the table, come and meet our newest housemate.” She beckoned Teddy forward. “I’m ever so sorry for that introduction, dear. My children apparently need more lessons on manners. This is Tonks’s younger brother Teddy. He’s going to be starting in fifth year at Hogwarts, and I believe we’re putting him in with Ron for the remainder of the summer. This is Ron, right here, Teddy. He’ll be in your year as well.” 

“Hey mate,” Ron stepped forward to shake hands and offer a friendly smile which looked about the same on his fifteen-year-old self as it always did on his thirty-year-old self, albeit with an undertone of curiosity. 

“This is my daughter Ginny, she’s a year younger than you.” 

Ginny gave a small wave and a bright, “Hi.” 

“Hey,” Teddy mumbled to his thirteen-year-old godmother. 

“And this is Fred and George, my supposedly-seventeen-year-old sons,” Molly cast another admonishing look in their direction. 

The twins looked at each other, pointing and feigning confusion. 

“Are you - ?” 

“No, I am.” 

They quickly swapped places and then said in unison: “George and Fred,” pointing to indicate the opposite of what they’re mother had said. (Teddy thought anyway, it was rather hard to keep up.)

Looking at the twins, whole and identical, was like looking directly at the sun. It was hard to do for long without becoming painful. Teddy had heard stories of the two of them in their youth, seen pictures, but there was always some tinge of sadness surrounding George and his twin, despite vehement effort on George’s part not to allow Fred and sadness to be inextricably linked. 

He was glad when the introductions moved on to Hermione, who had descended the last few steps to join the crowd now that the brawling was over. She smiled when she shook his hand, but there was an intense, calculating expression on her face that made Teddy feel as if he’d done something wrong. He resolved to put some distance between himself and the younger version of Hermione, as it occurred to him that if anyone was going to crack his secret, it was the future head of the Department of Law Enforcement. 

It was easy to fall in with the Weasleys. An action he was used to, even if it was different Weasleys and he found himself on the younger end rather than the older. He moved with the group toward the armoires and someone shoved a heavy stack of plates in his arms and he proceeded to set the table at Grimauld Place. 

“It smells delicious, Molly,” Remus said as the group clamored into position around the long, heavy table. 

Teddy strategically snagged a place at the edge of what was evidently the kids’ end, finding himself seated between Ron and Tonks, with Remus across from him. To his slight chagrin, Hermione plopped herself down in the seat beside Remus, giving Teddy another look which he caught in the periphery of his vision. 

The stew pot slid down the length of the table, doling out healthy portions on each plate. 

“So, like Quidditch?” Ron asked Teddy, passing a plate of rolls his way. He had already stuffed one into his mouth, making the words a little difficult to understand.

Teddy saw Hermione roll her eyes on the other side of the table.

“Not everything’s about Quidditch, Ron.” 

All four of the youngest Weasleys gave her blank looks. 

“So who’s your team?” one of the twins demanded, leaning forward to look at Teddy. 

Teddy blinked, still getting the hang of deciding what information about himself to divulge. “Uh… the Hollyhead Harpies.”

To his surprise, the twins gave identical snickers and Ron made a face. 

“I like this one,” Ginny declared loudly, eyeing her brothers with annoyance. 

“What’s wrong with the Harpies?” Teddy asked. In his time, everyone was a fan of the Harpies, mostly, he knew, because Ginny played for them, but even outside of the Weasley family it was no embarrassment to root for the team. Were they not good back in the 90’s? 

“Nothing, nothing,” the other twin said quickly, looking up at the ceiling. 

“They don’t think an all-girls team counts as a real team,” Ginny said coolly. 

“It’s not that!” Ron objected. 

“Oh, as if the Cannons are a real team.” 

A very familiar argument sprang up, so familiar Teddy had to try not to laugh. Ron would always be a diehard Cannons fan, no matter what fame his sister brought to other teams. 

“If you ever get bored of that,  _ I _ am capable of carrying on a conversation about something other than brooms and balls,” Hermione told Teddy with the air of someone offering a life-preserver. 

Then she turned to Remus and struck up a conversation about Goblin rights. 

Why had he never thought to ask Ron or Hermione for memories of his parents? Teddy wondered as he watched Hermione talking so earnestly with his father. He knew they knew them just as well as Harry. They might have been more willing to share what they remembered. 

He shook himself. Too late for that now. 

On his other side, Tonks was talking to Sirius Black about, it took him a moment to realize, Teddy’s grandparents. 

“Mum’s still got a stick up her bum about the whole thing, but I reckon Dad’ll bring her round.” 

Teddy couldn’t help but snort into his dinner roll. He’d never dared to use that phrase about his Gran, but he’d thought it many times. 

Tonks clapped him genially on the shoulder. “Ted here knows what I mean.”

“Anyone who’s met Andy knows what you mean,” Sirius snickered. Teddy tried not to look at his yellowed teeth glinting dully in the dim kitchen. “But it’s not half the stick Cissy always had.” 

Tonks gave a shudder. “If I never have to meet my aunt, it’ll be too soon.” 

“You’ve never met Narcissa?” Teddy blurted before he could think better of it. 

Sirius’s dark eyes fixed on him again. Tonks turned to give him a rather calculating look, and even Remus and Hermione broke off their conversation. 

“No, have you?” Tonks asked. 

Realizing too late that talking about somewhat stiff Christmas teas with the Malfoys was probably a bad idea in the Order of the Phoenix headquarters in 1995, Teddy thought frantically about what he could say.

“Just - just a couple times. In passing. You know, when I was out with - Mum.” 

“I suppose you’ve spent more time at Madame Mulkins’ than I ever put up with,” Tonks said, moving past the awkward moment breezily, but there was still a lingering curiosity in the way the three adults were looking at him, and Hermione had a very shrewd expression on her face. 

_ Think _ , Teddy chided himself, focusing on his stew rather than the rest of the table.  _ You’re undercover, you have to think about these things _ . It didn’t escape Teddy’s notice that his inner voice sounded a lot like his godfather’s. What would expert Auror and Chosen One Harry Potter do if he found himself suddenly flung back in time?

He did his best to listen rather than talk for the rest of the meal.

The Weasleys moved on from UK quidditch to world quidditch, eagerly anticipating this year’s World Cup and where the best place in the house would be to listen to it. Once that was exhausted, they moved on to Hogwarts quidditch prospects, throwing out last names Teddy vaguely recognized from time to time. 

On his other side, down the table, he caught fragments of more serious conversation. Policy changes in the Auror Office, recruitment efforts abroad, general personal safety strategies (narrated by who else but Mad-Eye Moody). 

Halfway through the meal, Sirius distracted Remus with reminiscences of the old order. 

“D’you remember that time me and James got cornered on the bike in London?” 

“I remember you telling the story at every meeting for three months,” Remus remarked, but with a fond smile, Teddy thought. 

He had heard a scant few stories about the Marauders from Harry, and couldn’t place anything on a motorbike. Was this a story about his own father and godfather Harry had never heard? Come to think of it, why was the younger version of him not here? If Hermione were here, why wouldn’t he be invited also? If this was the safest place outside Hogwarts, as Dumbledore himself seemed to think, where could his young godfather possibly be? 

He was distracted, both from his musings and the story Sirius had launched into with gusto, by Hermione. Without Remus to debate Goblin rights with, her keen focus had turned directly toward him in full-force. 

“So you’re going to be in fifth year?” 

The question felt like a trap, but Teddy couldn’t figure out how. So he answered ever so eloquently with: “Um, yeah.” 

“I’ve never seen you around the school before,” Hermione said. “I know everyone in my year, you know. I’m in ten classes, and I’ve had class with everyone.” 

No wonder she won nearly every court case she’d represented. Teddy gulped and reached for his backstory. 

“I-I’ve never been to school before. My mum taught me at home.”

“Oh. She must be a very talented witch.” 

“She is,” Teddy said with confidence. (Although his grandmother had not even had the patience to teach him reading and numbers as most magical parents took responsibility for, but had sent him to the local muggle primary instead.)

“What made her decide to send you now?” Hermione’s eyes were bright with inquiry. 

Teddy shrugged one shoulder. “I reckon I begged hard enough, I think. And also all - all this stuff going on.” He gestured vaguely to the atmosphere. “Dad - dad felt Hogwarts would be safer.” 

That seemed right. His grandmother could be paranoid and reclusive, but of what he’d heard, his grandad would be the one to talk her round. Mellow and sensible, Ted Tonks would advocate for his son’s formal attendance at school. 

This answer seemed to mollify Hermione for the moment, or perhaps she’d just been distracted by Ron attempting to fit as many every flavor beans into his mouth as he possibly could while the twins made bets. 

It was, by far, the most fascinating dinner Teddy had ever sat through. 

Once the food was gone, the younger Weasleys were drafted into washing dishes (“ _ You  _ could just use magic!” “Why would I do that when I have children?”), and Hermione quickly volunteered to help. Teddy tried to offer himself up, too, but Mrs. Weasley directed him sternly back to the table. “Not on your first night, dear.” 

He didn’t fight too hard, eager to resume his seat beside his parents. The crowd had thinned out somewhat by now. Kingsley, Mondungus, Sturgis, and Emaline had all disappeared. Moody had slid down the table and was talking to Tonks about defensive spells. The twins had cornered Bill and were interrogating him about a recent date he’d been on. Sirius and Remus were chatting idly, leaning back in their chairs while Sirius fidgeted with his wand. 

Teddy did not mind not being included in the conversation. He was full and warm and the rollercoaster of the day had suddenly left him exhausted. He could, he thought, fall asleep right here, lulled by the cadence of his mother’s and father’s voices. And His eyelids had indeed begun to droop when a sudden  _ whoosh  _ and flash of silver shot into the kitchen.


	5. Sign of the Times

A glowing weasel stood up on the dinner table. Teddy’s sluggish brain had just recognized it as a patronus when it did something he had never known a patronus to do. It opened its mouth and spoke in the very familiar voice of Arthur Weasley. 

_ Attack in Little Winging _ _   
_ _ He’s been expelled for using magic _ _   
_ __ Dumbledore’s here now

At once, the atmosphere in the room shifted dramatically. Everyone was sitting up, tense, staring at the place the weasel had just vanished into wispy silver smoke. Remus’s jaw was clenched, Sirius was stony and white. There was a small crash as a dish slipped out of Hermione’s hand by the sink. 

_ Attack _ Teddy thought. Without his brain fully processing the word, his stomach had dropped to the floor. His mouth had gone dry.  _ Attack _ . 

Who had been expelled? 

“What does that mean?” Ron asked, loud and startled on the other side of the room. 

Teddy could see his blue eyes wide as coins. Perhaps it was because he was used to seeing Ron as a steadfast and sure adult, but suddenly he seemed terribly young to Teddy, looking imploringly toward his mother and older brother. 

“If they went to the trouble of expelling him, he must still be alive,” one of the twins pointed out, and a whimper escaped Ginny’s lips. 

The other twin wrapped an arm firmly around her shoulders. 

Sirius had jumped up from the table and without a word strode toward the door, but Remus caught him quickly. 

“Dumbledore’s sorting it out,” Teddy heard him say in a quiet but forceful tone.

“Bollocks,” Sirius growled back, attempting to shake Remus’s grip off, but it was ironclad. There was a stern look in Remus’s otherwise gentle eyes that surprised Teddy when he glanced up at them. 

Something was clearly passing between the two men that he didn’t understand. 

Another shot of silver flew past Teddy’s right ear and when he looked around, Moody was pocketing his wand. 

“Asked for some clarification before Black gets himself arrested again,” he grunted. 

“I’m sure everything’s alright,” Molly said in her soothing way.

She opened one arm up to Ginny and with her other hand patted Ron’s cheeks. But there was an uncertainty Teddy had never seen in her face. There was fear. And this, perhaps more than anything else, unsettled him greatly. 

He was intimately aware, suddenly, of the den-like kitchen in which they sat, underground with thick walls. To Teddy, the room had always felt crypt-like and depressing, but in this moment it felt like a fortress against a dangerous storm. A place in which they might be safe but anyone outside was certainly not.

There was a sudden surge of green flames and a roaring in the fireplace, and then a much younger and sootier Arthur Weasley than Teddy had ever encountered tumbled into the kitchen. 

“Arthur!” Molly said at once, 

“What’s going on, Dad?” Bill demanded, helping his father to his feet and brushing him off. 

“Oh, it’s all quite a mess,” Arthur said fretfully. “Arabella saw it all. Two dementors in some back alley - “

“Dementors?” Sirius interjected, loud and gruff, and when Teddy looked at him, there was something ghostly in those dark eyes that hadn’t been there before.

_ Until the Humane Prisons Act of 2003 (headed by Hermione Granger) deemed it torturous and therefore unlawful, Azkaban Prison was guarded by dark, soul-sucking creatures known as dementors _ .  _ _

Teddy had read that just last month in his History of Modern Magic textbook. 

Turning quickly away from the gaunt face of Sirius Black, Teddy noticed that Ron and Hermione had edged close to each other, Hermione’s fingers wrapping around Ron’s. The twins looked as grim-faced as Teddy’s father, and even his mother’s carefree expression had sobered. 

“Yes, yes, two of them,” Arthur went on. “He managed to fight them off, but of course he had to do magic to do that, and Fudge is beside himself with glee -” 

“Creepy little gremlin,” muttered Sirius.

“-He was readying a team to go collect his wand when Dumbledore showed up. They’ve already put through the expulsion paperwork.” 

On the other side of the room, Hermione gave a weak sort of croak. 

“They can’t just do that!” Ron exclaimed furiously. “Only Dumbledore can expel students.” And then more uncertainly. “Can’t he?” 

“There’s a clause of power written into the law prohibiting underage magic,” Remus began, but seeing the distraught expressions on his audience’s faces, seemed to decide to change tact. “The short answer is yes, in some situations they may be able to exercise that authority, but not usually so quickly. The only thing the Ministry can do without due process is arrest someone.” 

“Oh good,” said Ron sarcastically.

“Due process my arse,” Sirius growled beside him. 

“Dumbledore will sort it out,” Tonks said, perhaps not at the level of optimism Teddy had grown used to in her voice over the past few hours, but with an air of assurance nonetheless. 

“But he’s alright?” Molly asked. Her arms were still tight around Ginny. 

“Yes,” Arthur told her quickly, taking in her frightened face for perhaps the first time. “Yes, he’s alright. Back at his aunt and uncle’s. As long as he keeps his head he’ll be safe there.” 

Some of the adrenaline had begun to seep out of the room, although no one seemed less anxious. Sirius threw himself back onto the bench and brought his goblet shooting across the scrubbed surface to his hand. 

“You should write to him,” Remus told Sirius, sitting down beside him as well. 

“What am I supposed to say?” Sirius grunted. 

Teddy thought it was another obstinate remark for a moment, but then he saw the genuine question on Sirius’s face.

“Tell him not to do anything rash,” was Remus’s advice. 

A thought had begun to form in the back of Teddy’s mind about this mysterious ‘he’ who had fought off dementors and been expelled from school. But it couldn’t possibly be, could it? Fighting off dementors sounded like the sort of crazy thing his godfather might do now, on a mission for work, or maybe during the thickest part of the war a few years from now. 

But he was only fifteen.  _ Barely _ fifteen, Teddy thought, remembering the date. And cautious as he was, he would  _ never _ be wandering around a dark alley on his own in times like these. 

“I wrote him from the Ministry,” Arthur was saying. The group was all slowly coming back to the table, leaving the dishes half washed in the sink. “I told him to stay put and hold onto his wand.” 

“He wouldn’t be thick enough to run,” Ron objected. He dropped back to his seat beside Teddy with a heavy thud. 

“Remember what he did last time he thought he was getting expelled and there was a mass murderer after him?” one of the twins pointed out. 

Two more thuds as they also threw their weight onto the bench. 

_ Last time? _ Teddy thought. How many times had Harry nearly been expelled?

Sirius raised his wand and a moment later a scrap of parchment and a quill appeared before him. He scribbled for barely a second before getting up and hurrying out of the room, this time without pursuit. 

“What the bloody hell were dementors doing in Surrey?” a twin - Teddy guessed it was Fred, although he still wasn’t sure - asked the room.

“What do you think?” was Moody’s grough response. “The real question is who sent them there.” 

A disquieting silence filled the room. There were a lot of blanks Teddy was struggling to fill. 

Why wasn’t Harry  _ here _ ? He wondered for the first time. It was the headquarters for the Order of the Phoenix. Outside of Hogwarts, it had to be one of the most fortified buildings in the country, not to mention Harry’s godfather’s house. The Weasleys and even Hermione were here. Why would Harry be anywhere else?

Eventually murmured conversations broke out at each end of the table. Hermione and the Weasleys bent their heads toward each other. Tonks had moved down a couple seats to exchange comments with Moody, and then the two of them left the room without a word and didn’t return. 

(They were no doubt doing important Order things, but Teddy couldn’t help the sinking in his stomach when he realized she had left the house and he had no idea when he might see her again.) 

Remus, Molly, Arthur, and Bill were talking under their breaths with very serious expressions, eyeing the younger side of the table warily as if to make sure they weren’t listening in just as the younger Weasleys occasionally shot scrutinizing looks toward  _ them _ , trying to lip read or catch a snatch of conversation. 

Teddy, toward the middle and a new and unknown entity, was not included in either group. He stared down at the grain of the table, working sluggishly through his own thoughts.

Was it possible his appearance had  _ changed _ something? Time, he remembered Hermione telling him once, was a delicate thing. Even wizards had only the vaguest ideas how it worked. Muggles had written a story once about a man accidentally stepping on a butterfly and changing the whole course of history. 

Teddy had no idea how his appearance could be connected to dementors in Surrey, but it was a possibility, wasn’t it? Every breath he took in the past distrubed air molecules that weren’t supposed to be distrubed. Everything he did was causing ripples. 

His parents, for instance, were never supposed to be in Diagon Alley tonight. They were only there because he was here. Suppose they had been meant to be elsewhere, and if they had been elsewhere, something in the chain of events ending in Harry’s expulsion would’ve been stopped. 

There was a scrape as the kitchen door opened and Teddy jumped. It was Sirius, returning from sending his note. He glanced toward the huddle of adults, but then his eyes landed on Teddy. Teddy quickly turned back to studying the table top. 

This didn’t stop Sirius from swinging himself onto the bench opposite Teddy. He leaned forward on bony elbows, and Teddy could feel his dark eyes boring into him. 

“So, Ted, I think it’s high time we catch up.” 

Teddy liked to think of himself as brave. He was in Gryffindor after all. But there was no denying the way his mouth went bone-dry or how he couldn’t meet that intense gaze. Knowing Sirius wasn’t a mass murderer didn’t make him much less intimidating. 

“Where was it you grew up again?” 

“Sirius.” 

Remus’s measured, warning tone was a life raft to Teddy. He looked up gratefully at his father, who now stood at his shoulder, giving Sirius another look that seemed to say a thousand things. Teddy knew about looks like that. Probably 80% of Harry, Ron, and Hermione’s communication was through looks like that. Sirius Black had existed so much as Harry’s godfather to Teddy, that he often forgot exactly what he’d meant to his own father. 

“I’m just getting to know my cousin, Moony,” Sirius was saying, defensive. 

“You know where he grew up. The same house Ted and Andy have had for twenty years.” 

“Well I want to know what it was like for him. I like to know where the people staying in my house come from.” 

“Now is not the time,” Remus told him quietly. His eyes flicked toward the Weasleys, who were now eyeing them curiously.

Their interactions reminded Teddy strongly of a large dog straining against its leish and it’s master constantly having to keep it in check. 

“I’m getting another drink,” Sirius muttered after a minute. Rather than summon one this time, he got up and strode across the kitchen. 

“Don’t be bothered by him,” Remus told Teddy, and, to Teddy’s inner delight, he sat down beside him. “He’s got a streak of paranoia, and it’s not without good reason, but he’ll warm up to you. He’s not as frightening as he looks.” 

“Aw, thanks Moony. Neither are you.” Sirius thunked a goblet down in front of Remus as he rejoined them. Remus merely rolled his eyes. At the comment or the unsolicited drink Teddy wasn’t sure, but the gesture sent a brief smirk across Sirius’s face.

Remus’s vouching for Sirius didn’t put Teddy completely at ease, but it was nice to be part of a group now, rather than sitting alone. Fascinating, to Teddy, to watch the two of them act off one another. 

The quiet conversations carried on, everyone just filling the time as they waited. And then, finally, the flames burst green and a letter came flying out. Bill caught it and and swiftly sliced through the wax seal with a pocket knife. 

“What’s it say?” Ron asked. 

“Who’s it from?” a twin demanded. 

“It’s from McGonagall,” Bill said, eyes scanning the page. 

“What does it say, dear?” Molly prompted anxiously. 

The atmosphere had grown tense again, like someone taughtening a drum. And then finally - 

Arthur, reading over his son’s shoulder, let out an audible sigh. “The Ministry’s agreed to a hearing on August twelfth. He’s allowed to keep his wand until then, and then a judge from the Department of Magical Law Enforcement will make a decision.” 

“Oh my goodness,” Molly sighed. 

“Thank Merlin,” Teddy heard Hermione exclaim. “There’s no way they could find him guilty once they’ve heard what happened.” 

“It’s bollocks they’re hauling him in at all,” Ron scowled.

“Just because Fudge is a pissant -” 

“The whole Ministry’s a lot of pissants -” 

Ron and his brothers weren’t the only ones upset. Sirius had stood up, jaw clenched again. Teddy thought he was going to storm out, but instead he headed back to the liquor cabinet. 

Remus followed him doggedly. “I think you’ve had enough…” 

“Okay, okay,” Molly was saying over the clamor. “Now that we know what’s going on, it’s past time for bed.” 

She was met with a chorus of groans from her children, but they all had begun to turn toward the stairs anyway. 

“We’ve got a full day of cleaning tomorrow and I want you up by eight.” 

“ _ Mum _ , it’s the holidays, aren’t we ever going to get a break?” 

“You get plenty of breaks, Teddy, dear, you’ll be bunking with Ron for now. I put your things up there already.” 

As she did with her procession of grandchildren in Teddy’s time, Molly stood at the foot of the kitchen stairs and kissed each of them on the cheek as they passed, even Hermione and Teddy just as if they were one of her red-headed brood. 

“Quiet on the stairs,” she reminded them in a whisper as they climbed up toward the hall. 


End file.
